Does someone know where I can find a good explaination of message handling in C#? i.e. how do the PreProcessFilter and WndProc methods work? Initially I thought that everything in the windows enviroment is plugged into a central message system and PreProcessFilter selects which messages are relevant to a control or form and this gets passed into WndProc and handled. But now I don't think that's right. Here's an example of what I'm doing. I have a windows form that overrides CreateParams so that it shows like a tooltip or context menu, it won't take focus or activation so I can't use the LostFocus event to close the window when I click off of it. So I figured I would have to override something in the messaging system to do this but I'm a little lost. any ideas? thanks, Jesse

I wanted to create my own Menu type class for use with a drop down button so that when you click the button a window can pop up that will contain some other controls. At first I thought I could do it with a stripped down form, but I realized that when I create the form it will always be activated and take focus from my main window (I don't want this to happen). So what I'm wondering is what are similar things like context menus or the dropdown portion of the combobox based on? Or is it possible to make a form that won't steal the focus? Thanks, Jesse

My colleagues and I are using .NET 2003 along with visual source safe on our developments. We keep running into compilation problems where we have multiple projects in our solution and some of the projects have references to other projects in the same solution. We keep getting errors when we compile saying that Visual Studio can't copy the dlls that we are making into the runtime folder because they are being held by another process. We've tried endless permutations of the Copy Local property on each of the references. Has anyone run into similar problems? does anyone know how to help? Thanks.

So then how would I go about adding it myself?

Is anyone aware of a way to turn on the windows text-smoothing for one application (not globally from the control panel) I thought there might be an attribute or something in the SetStyle method but I haven't found anything. thanks, JR

Does anyone know if neutral threading model doesn't work in in XP? I seem to be getting different results depending on if I am in XP or windows 2000. any hints?

arrrrrgggggghh... Using the interface works fine, except when it is in my new thread. damn.

okay, I get it... Thanks a lot for your help. just one last question, for my new interface, do I use the GUID from the COM interface or from the COM class itself? that's it, I swear. thanks again. Jesse

When I said it was putting out garbage data, when I call WriteSPI(dataarray, size) I was looking at the output in bytes and I would get: 00 00 AA 00 size 00 ... so the size value was being sent in the part that was supposed to be the data, the first three bytes of data was always the same though, no matter what I sent. Are you saying that I can write a separate interface for my COM object in C#, that will override the one that was automatically generated when I compiled the C++ code for the COM object? If so, I didn't realize you can do that. If I specify the GUID as an attribute for the object, it will be able to find it? hmmmm...

I understand, but C# still sees the unsigned char* from my COM method as a ref byte so how can I get around that? sorry to keep bugging you.

I want to pass the entire array, but what data type will my COM object be expecting if I pass ref bytearray? right now, the prototype for my COM method is: STDMETHODIMP CUSB::WriteSPI(unsigned char* datain, int size) so, when C# gets a hold of that, it takes the pointer as a ref byte in other words, what is the C++/COM equivalent of a ref to an array?

My COM object is not implemented as an STA. so if it's marshalling, what can I do? (I know there probably isn't a short answer) thanks.

Has anyone noticed anything strange happening when you try to use the ref statement to pass a parameter while in a sub-thread? Here's what I did: public void ThreadProc() { byte[] data=new byte[7]; data[0]=0; data[1]=0; data[2]=1; data[3]=0; data[4]=1; data[5]=7; data[6]=7; chip1.WriteSPI(ref data[0], 7); } where ThreadProc is called when I start a new thread: thread1=new System.Threading.Thread(new ThreadStart(ThreadProc)); thread1.Priority=System.Threading.ThreadPriority.Lowest; thread1.Start(); chip1.WriteSPI(ref byte datain, datasize) calls a COM object method that writes a stream of bytes on the USB port to a device downstream. It uses the reference as a pointer to the byte array. All of this works fine in the main part of my app, but when I try to put it in a separate thread it writes garbage data to the port (actually it keeps writing the same garbage data every time). Has anyone done anything like this? Please feel free to point out my gross ignorance where appropriate. Thanks JR

I have to agree that there are two levels Matrix, either that or everything that the architect was saying is bs. In order to rebuild Zion, the people doing the rebuilding can't know that the previous Zion was destroyed. If they knew, then the whole system wouldn't work. Therefore, when they select people to rebuild Zion, all their memories and determination to fight the machines can be set in place via the outer level matrix. Also, there was some nice symbolism of taking another red pill, in the form of red candy given to Neo by the oracle... although it looked more like a mike and ike. There is a boatload of new religous symbolism in there too. If Morpheus is a John the Baptist figure, Neo is most definitely Jesus. Depending on your religous views, Jesus is also considered to be the 6th prophet (Baha'i Faith, Progressive Revelation), Jesus' main message being love and all... it all kind of ties in together in a neat little package. I should probably do some work now.